TBAY (Mild): Slytherin and the Reader -- Sympathy for the Devil vs SYCOPHANTS

[Scott Northrup]

No: HPFGUIDX 51511


>
> Scott Northup wrote:
>
> > PS A lot of the posts defending Snape (and Draco)
> > over the past few days have piqued my curiosity.
> > Snape-defenders: do you stick up for Wormtongue
> > and other slimy folks in literature in movies? Do
> > you say to your friends "Grima was a good guy! He
> > just hung around with the wrong crowd!"
>
> Eileen wrote:
>
> > Oh most definitely? Did you not know, Scott, that some
> > of us listies practice a private devotion to St. Grima
> > Wormtongue, patron of sycophants? The shrine is in the
> > Garden of Good and Evil. Candles can be purchased at
> > the front desk of the Canon Museum.
>
>
> ::lights candle to Blessed Grima Wormtongue, the Patron Saint
> of SYCOPHANTS::
>
> SYCOPHANTS = Society for Yes-men, Cowards, Ostriches, Passive-
> Aggressives, Hysterics, Abject Neurotics and Toadying Sycophants.
>
> Yes, Scott.  It's true.  Some of us -- a few, true, but a *happy*
> few -- do make it our practice, nay, even consider it our solemn
> *duty,* to defend those characters who receive, on the whole, less
> reader sympathy than any others: the cowards, the grovellers, the
> minions, the toadies, the secondary villains who don't even get snappy
> lines of sadistic dialogue, who don't even have good *dress sense.*
>
> Those characters are always my favorites.  They always have been,
> ever since I was very small.  Not the *cute* versions, mind you.
> Ugh, no!  Not the Gurgis and the Dobbys and the like.  I can't bear
> Gurgis, those nasty little SYCOPHANTS wannabes.
>
> No, I liked the *real* SYCOPHANTS, the *sincere* ones, the ones who
> had nothing in the least bit admirable or noble about them.  I would
> sometimes forgive them if they found redemption in death.
> *Sometimes.*  But I much preferred they not.
>
> I like minions.  I like Grimas and Smeagols, and all of those
> unfortunate Imperial officers in the Star Wars movies too, the ones
> who were always getting offed.  I like the DEs in the graveyard.
>
> I am particularly partial to Avery.
>
> Hey, what can I say?  I just dig those characters.  Some people
> always like the villains, but me?  Nah.  I always like the villains'
> *minions* best of all.
>
> I think, though, that you'd best be careful implying that Snape
> really fits into the same category -- the Snapefans will be after you
> in a heartbeat.  Seriously, Snape really doesn't seem to me to
> partake of the same appeal at all.  For one thing, the dude is
> seriously heroic in his own way, which is the one thing that you
> absolutely *cannot* say about SYCOPHANTS.  In fact, a profound lack
> of heroism is the unifying characteristic of SYCOPHANTS.  Snape, with
> his redemption subplot, his past spying career, and his sense of
> integrity, doesn't fit the same mold at all.  He's a completely
> different type of character, IMO.


Haha.... actually, I did /not/ mean to imply that Snape is a sycophant,
minion, or toadie.  The real reason I brought it up, is that while watching
The Two Towers, I thought to myself  "Grima looks closer to how I imagine to
Snape.  Alan Rickman's portrayal isn't greasey/sweaty/sallow enough."

That's all.

-Scott